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Washington— Congresswomen Diana DeGette (CO-1) and Louise Slaughter (NY-25), co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, and Congresswoman Nita Lowey (NY-17), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, today condemned the anti-choice provisions included in Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations bills as Congress considers these measures this week. There are an unprecedented number of anti-women provisions included in this legislation and additional amendments offered that attack women’s health and the constitutionally-protected right to choose. These attacks come despite the fact that members of the Pro-Choice Caucus have been instrumental in helping pass every bill to fund the government since 2011.

“This year we have seen repeated Republican efforts to attack and undermine women’s access to comprehensive reproductive health care. Our fight is far from over,” said DeGette. “The House Republicans’ appropriations minibus is riddled with arbitrary and offensive anti-woman policies. The Pro-Choice Caucus strongly opposes these shameful riders and will not allow them to be included in any government funding bill.”

“We are in the midst of an unprecedented attack on women’s health care rights. From trying to zero out Title X family planning funding to eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, there is apparently no length the Majority won’t go to attack the women of this country. Republican leaders in Congress are playing with fire by including these amendments given that members of the Pro-Choice Caucus have been needed to pass every bill to fund the government for the last six years. That support is being put at risk by the Majority’s decision to include these provisions. There is an easy fix, and that is for the Majority to remove them from these bills. Anti-women provisions have no place in any government funding bill,” said Slaughter.

"The 2018 appropriations bills represent a sustained and multi-faceted assault on women's health care," said Lowey. “These bills go far beyond the majority's floundering effort to strip health insurance from 20 million people by repealing the Affordable Care Act. With funding cuts and terminations, and poison pill riders targeting women's legal health choices, contraception, and family planning at home and abroad, the majority is making clear they will stop at nothing to attack women's health care."